Concise, clear and comprehensive snapshots of vocational education and training systems in EU, Iceland and Norway: this is what the Cedefop Spotlight on VET series offers. Building on individual country Spotlights, this publication provides an overview of VET systems with their distinctive qualities, such as main accession and progression routes…

Both the Portuguese appropriation of the lifelong learning policy proposed by the European Union since the mid-1990s and the definition of adult education policy in Portugal were based on a discourse that emphasised an "unacceptable educational deficit" for democracy. The role of the State in the "governance" of the public…

Nongovernmental organizations, particularly those related to development work (local development-oriented nongovernmental organizations; LDNGO), and their agents have been assuming, in Portugal, an important role in the field of adult education. These organizations develop with the State, at the national level, and with supranational institutions…

In 1974, when a successful revolution had overthrown a dictatorial regime, Portugal had an elite higher education system with low participation rates. In the decades following the revolution, the state developed policies aimed at increasing student participation to European levels. However, higher education policies have been through frequent…

The New Opportunities Initiative (NOI) is a Portuguese flagship programme to recognise and accredit prior learning (RPL, APL) and to endow low-skilled adults with upper secondary qualifications, which is defined as the minimum entry threshold to the exercise of a full citizenship in a knowledge-rich society. NOI's major achievement has been its…